Forum menu
My sister got a kit for her birthday and the results were really interesting
We are 95% Welsh 3% Irish and 2% Norwegian
Very happy with that.
Nothing exotic here, I only have Irish ancestors on both side. But I'd like to find out if there is Spanish or Viking in there somewhere.
Ive got the Wolf of Badenoch in the family tree, bit of a firestarter apparently.
Border Reiver.... nasty ******s
87% French. My father in law has disowned me. Apparently it has something to do with airbus and the fin on the A310.
I'm descended from Charlemagne 👑
...but then we all are:
Ancestry is a bit of a daft concept when genetically we all have common ancestry going back only a matter of centuries.
Every single person in my family's living memory is a Fifer.
Bite it, you scum
Tracing my dad's maternal line back there are Spalding's in Aberdeenshire mid 1700s, tracing my mum's maternal line back there are Spalding's in Aberdeenshire mid 1700s.
My immediate family were Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English( my grandparents) . Going further back there was French and Scandinavian if the family names were anything to go by. Now of course a strong Germanic element to my offspring!
We're feccin Oirish for many many generations. A rare mix of Fermanagh and Wicklow.
Only know what I love heard from my parents, but have a German mum and grandma, Cockney grandad, Scottish grandad on my dads side and English grandmother. Like to think I get my ruthless efficiency from my mum and Nan.
My sister got a kit for her birthday and the results were really interesting
We are 95% Welsh 3% Irish and 2% Norwegian
No, your sister is 95% Welsh, 3% Irish and 2% Norwegian.
You'd need to take a test to determine if you are as well.
Related to the first Count of Peebles. Vache. When I first went to Peebles in 2018 I knew nothing of my family history. I did have the strange feeling it was home. I knew there was a scots connection but basically been deployed for 18 years so really had no time to research the matter. So I moved back.
After Peebles seems they were in Nether Horsburgh until the 1900s, Then Dalkeith. After the second world war my grandfather moved to the USA.
Glad to be back in the borders and consider myself a Borderer. My Oak Ridge TN accent throws people off.
How do they arrive at 95% Welsh?
Surely they can just look at dna markers
that you share with other people?
I’m nearly half-Scottish and half-English. The interesting bits are from Mali and Senegal. My great, great grandmother was descended from African slaves and lived in Guyana - her family name was that of the plantation owner, privateer (pirate) and slave trader. My great, great grandfather was an engineer from Glasgow who was there to oversee the installation of the machinery to process the sugar cane to make rum.
I had a DNA test done earlier this year and have been able to trace back my family history for the last 2 hundred years. On my mother’s side in Yorkshire, it appears quite a few of my ancestors and their family members enjoyed the hospitality at HMP Armley.
Mrs DB is a proper whizz at genealogy - she was adopted yet managed to track her birth father in Australia - he didn’t even know he had a daughter and they first met about 48 years later. Back through her family line there is an illicit descendent of the Viscount Althorp, Earl Spencer.
We're all someone's daughter
We're all someone's son
How long can we look at each other
Down the barrel of a gun?
You're the voice, try and understand it
Make a noise and make it clear
Oh, whoa
We're not gonna sit in silence
We're not gonna live with fear
Oh, whoa
Like to think I get my ruthless efficiency from my mum and Nan.
What about your fanatical devotion to the Pope?
English (Sussex/Hampshire border for 200 years+ on my father’s side), Italian, Irish and German. That’s what we know about, who knows before 1750? Not had a genetic test.
I know one half of my family tree is Welsh Valleys. Didn’t move around, there may have been very close family relations, legal but very close. Which explains a LOT!
The other side I’ve no idea. TBH I’d prefer it that way.
I have inside me blood of kings.
Yeah!
Going back to great grandparents, English, Irish, French, Scottish, Spanish and Belgian.
Mostly Catholic with some Jewish ancestry.
No wonder I'm confused. 🙃
Good mix that.
My daughter did a genetic test: turns out she's half-Spanish (no great surprise there given her mother's Spanish...), 25% English, about 22% Welsh/Irish/Scottish (whatever that means), then the surprise finding that she's about 2.5% Ashkenazi Jewish. Which means sometime in the latter part of the 19th century I have a central-European great-great-grandparent. I asked my dad, and apparently my mother's maiden name (Ison) was rumoured to be the anglicised version of Isaacson. Something I'd never known.
My wife would like to get one done now - the test my daughter did just said "50% Iberian peninsular", which given the waves of immigration here is a bit crap. I assume a Spanish company would provide more detail.
My cousin traced my dad's family bad 400years, all English, mostly stonemasons, and mostly called William until 'Mad Bob' popped up in the 1800s and some shenanigans with some racehorses ensued. Apparently he was friends with Lord Byron, Shelly and that crowd. How mad do you have to be for Bryon's mates to call you the mad one?!
Anyway, according to a bloke my dad met in a pub once my surname is viking
I’m not sure and don’t overly care. I picture a long line of the oppressed:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng
Scots,Yorkshire,Viking.
My skills with an axe are legendary.
This is all through geneology research from my brother in NZ!
My surname side we've got back to Clipstone Forest in Nottinghamshire, to a specific address. However the geography of our surname is with the Border reivers. The one thing we may have that connects the two is that two brothers appear to have married the same woman - and what we think is a marriage record of the first brother (who lived in Clipstone) has place of birth as Scotland... It's all a bit smoke and mirrors of 17th century records though.
Edit: one of my gran's background was Irish, moved to North Wales and finally Wirral.
On my mum's side we've got back to Kellham Island in Sheffield and a business making cutlery.
Ironically we live in Scotland, my old office was Kellham Island and the in laws live near Clipstone...
Irish.
Yup, good old Irish
Fathers side our surname originated in a village in the north called at the time Derry, now Londonderry. The name is unique to the village.
Mothers side from Cork.Southern Ireland. An uncle(one of the better off ones) spent thousands following the family tree but found no outside influences so southern Ireland only, i don't know the villages though. He also found a few were hanged for sea piracy 😆
So thats basically where we started, havent done any DNA studies and tbh i wouldnt send my dna to any of these companies.
Me Born in England to Scottish parents, Scottish grandparents and Irish great grandparents, though one of the great great grandparents was Italian. I guess that's where my love of Italian ice ream comes from 😆
But as with everyone on Earth, somewhere in the great rift valley originally 😉
My sister got a kit for her birthday and the results were really interesting
We are 95% Welsh 3% Irish and 2% Norwegian
How do they arrive at 95% Welsh?
Surely they can just look at dna markers
that you share with other people?
the companies that do these tests are only comparing you to their other customers who tend to be white europeans and north Americans. They don't have access to all the DNA in the world or even all the DNA in Wales - just their other customers - which means they can overlook quite a lot. That result would mean you that you share common genes with 95% of their welsh customers and 2% of their Norwegian customers... but how many Norwegian customers do they have. How many Indonesian or Uzbek customers do they have? You're only comparing yourself to other people who are interested in knowing how varied or pure their ancestry might be which only a fairly portion of the global population.
The geneticist Adam Rutherford took one and it revealed similar stats to those above - large percentage of UK a smattering of of continental or nordic DNA. It failed to report that he was half Guyanese-Indian because presumably that company didn't have don't have any customers in Guyana or India
Half Isle of Lewis back for several generations. 1/4 English 1/4 Glasgow/Renfrewshire/Stirlingshire back to 17thc and Irish before that.
My siblings and I are the first generation from my mother's side not to be native Gaelic speakers.
I'd like to know what results would have made the OP unhappy?
I’m surprised no ones mentioned Danny “f***ing” Dyer and his royal ancestors yet.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47567792
No way in hell I'd do the DNA test.
My ancestry is mostly Kent, Somerset, Wiltshire, Lincolnshire, Bermondsey, and almost certainly a bit of Huguenot
Anyone else got a convicted murderer in their ancestral tree?
I’m 63% Alsatian, 24% Labrador and 4% Jack Russel.
I think something got mixed up but it’s probably just as accurate as the ‘DNA’ tests.
Family is across the Scottish Borders mainly drovers, we’ve some very large land owners from the Alston and Cumbria area that went to pot and PM Gladstone is a relative fairly close to my mother’s side.
Well it was Bikemagic and and a bit of the Cycling Plus forums before coming here...
Never done a test but from the family history, it'll be about 90% a bunch of cousin-shaggers in the north east of scotland and about 10% viking rapists, by coincidence both sides of my family end up tracing back to the same 50 square miles of rocks and swamps.
Co Mayo & Co Limerick via East Leeds on my mum’s side.
My dad claims to be descended from the Huguenots but i’ve seen no evidence to support that
On my Dad's side his paternal ancestry can be traced back to the Corris area of mid-Wales with one arm moving to Liverpool and another to Leeds (where I was born). My surname is Welsh and emanates from the Dolgellau area according to one of those academic studies that were widely publicised a few yeas ago. On his maternal side I believe there is Scottish ancestry prior to a large group in Leeds in 1800, which came through on the DNA test I did (see below). My Mum's side seems to have been largely based around the area to the south of Lancaster.
An American relative did the Ancestry thing and paid for me to do the DNA test which showed results of 42% Scottish, 28% Wales, 26% North West England / Lancashire and 4% Swedish
Got my DNA done 6-7 years ago and was 48% British then. Just checked again and it’s gone up to 90.9%. Brexit bonus?
No idea of my DNA ancestry - the wife and mil have both had theirs done, but they seem to be 'updated' and changed every 6months and are fairly irrelevant.
But I can trace my direct lineage through the English heraldry back to about 1240 which has more meaning to me than finding out a spread of information.
Anyone else got a convicted murderer in their ancestral tree?
My children might do....
I can trace my direct lineage
I'm not sure what the purpose of a line is. This is a photo of my great, great, great, great, great grandfather who was born in 1800. Its nice to have a photo of him.... but he's only one of my 128 great, great,great,great, great grandparents and I'm only one of of huge tangled web of their off spring. Until the last two generations each branch of my family tree that I'm aware of - the ones directly between him and me, typical had between 7 and 14 offspring - there will be thousands of people who'd be similarly related to that guy now - hundreds of thousands, nearing a million, who'd be able to draw a line to any of those 128. Its like drawing a line between two stars in the sky and saying that means theres a significant link between them.
While its interesting that I have a copy of that photo his relation to me is trivial, he doesnt look like me or anyone in my family he'll bear little in common with me genetically - he certainly wouldn't be able to donate a kidney to me. It only really tells me what clothes people he's age in his time wore.
Anyone else got a convicted murderer in their ancestral tree?
My partner shares a surname with only 500 or so other people. A recent ancestor changed their name by deed poll to distance themselves from the murdery ones in the family.
If you go back 20 generations you'll have 1 million ancestors, a thousand years ago the population of England was yes you've guessed it 1 million.
The DNA ancestry companies are promising way more than they can deliver
And as they increase the size of their databases the interpretation of their results change
https://www.livescience.com/63997-dna-ancestry-test-results-explained.html
They are interesting and fun but to be taken with a large grain of salt
Also I've worked in a lab that looked at rare inherited diseases, where the wider family was sequenced to look for rate mutations and the number families with a child who's parents (usually dads) weren't who they thought they were was about 1 in 10